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Image courtesy of courgarnews.com |
Continuing our lessons on driving, our next topic of discussion is very near and dear to my heart, mostly because it is one of the things that irritates me the most regardless if I am on two or four wheels. The concept of lane discipline is absolutely lost on most American drivers. The idea is that if we are more disciplined with how we occupy traffic lanes, then there will be freer flow of traffic and everyone will have a much more enjoyable behind the wheel. That is the ideal situation, anyway. Reality feels more like total chaos with most drivers more interested in asserting their dominance as opposed to demonstrating their mastery of driving.
Drivers generally occupy whichever lane has the fewest cars or wherever they happen to feel like being with little consideration for the impact this has on other drivers. However, this often results in traffic being tied up as people rather selfishly, or perhaps just obliviously, occupy the lanes without a thought to traffic patterns at large. Sometimes, this is due to distractions in the car, which is a whole other topic, but sometimes it is due purely to a lack of understanding of how their actions can impact everyone around them.
So, through a series of examples, I hope to highlight several key situations and point out which lane discipline principles to apply to help make traffic flow more smoothly for everyone.